It's hard to say why we save the things we save when someone dies. Why a particular shirt feels meaningful or why it's hard to delete certain voicemails. The list of things a loved one leaves in a will might be long. It's often what they didn't have to include in the will that sticks with you.

Among other things, Jim Buss saved a voicemail from his father from Jan. 20, less than a month before the Lakers' Hall of Fame owner, Jerry Buss, died after an 18-month battle with cancer. He has replayed it so many times he knows it by heart.

Buss had missed the call. His dad had wanted to talk to him about the Los Angeles Lakers' disappointing season. Run though all the decisions they'd made together that hadn't turned out the way they'd hoped. The offseason trades for Steve Nash and Dwight Howard that were supposed to make the $100 million Lakers title contenders, but ended up turning into an injury-riddled flop. The early-season firing of coach Mike Brown and surprising hire of Mike D'Antoni (over Phil Jackson) that could have made them look like savvy geniuses but instead came off as misguided and hurried. They had discussed those things backward and forward a thousand times already, and all roads came back to the same place.

"My dad was disappointed, just as all Laker fans should be disappointed that we didn't get to realize the dream of four Hall of Famers on the same team," Buss said in an interview with ESPNLosAngeles.com. "But hey, we went for it. What the hell. ...

^ that was from Jerry buss. All Jim did was listen to his dad and hired mike d'antoni

People hate hearing that and would rather assume that Jerry was 'taken advantage of' by his son and tricked into hiring D'antoni or was delirious in his sickness and that they shouldn't have listened or something.

Fact is, Jerry picked D'antoni and as Jim said, him and Jerry worked every day on decisions together up until the final month of his life.

Come on it wasn't a senile old man, it was Jerry Buss who was still putting in work every day even from his hospital bed. THAT should be commended and should be thought of in terms of how great an owner and hard worker he was.

Trying to weaken how hard he worked just because you don't want to put the D'antoni hire on him is disrespectful to how hard the guy worked up until the very end.

Yes Jerry chose D'antoni. It doesn't diminish everything he did nor make the world implode. It's time to move on.

RIP Jerry Buss. Thank you for working your tail off for us all even till the very end.

"We did the coaching search and interviews and fed him all the information," Buss said. "And he said, 'This is who I want. D'Antoni's the man.' Knowing that in the future we had to rebuild, he felt that Phil was not a guy to rebuild. It's not fair to him. It was actually more of a respectful thought towards Phil."

Jim said he and Kupchak had come to the conclusion that Jackson simply wasn't sure if he wanted to return to the sidelines after their interview with him, and if he was reluctant, so were they. He noted that Kupchak and Jackson also had lunched over the summer and Jackson told Kupchak then that he had no intention of ever coaching again. Still, Buss said they wanted to reach out to gauge Jackson's interest again after firing Brown because "he's the best basketball coach of all time."

When they reported back to Dr. Buss after all of the interviews had concluded (Mike Dunleavy had also interviewed for the job), he assessed the situation quickly and made a decision.

"He said, 'Do it by Sunday night,' " Buss said. "He wanted to get it done before the weekend was over."

Sounds to me like Jerry didn't like being put on 'hold' for one. Wasn't too confident that Phil even knew if he really wanted to coach again, and felt Phil obviously wouldn't stick around when it came time to 'rebuild' which could have been after the 2014 season should Kobe retire(and I'm guessing Jerry thought he would, if we had Dwight and the future in place etc)

And for two he felt like the Lakers in a few years were gonna be rebuilding and didn't want to put Phil through it.

And third seems he was genuinely a fan of D'antoni's style,

I'm almost 99.9% sure Jerry thought Kobe was going to retire after the 2014 season and that Gasol would be gone and that it would be about building around Dwight, whatever star we got in 2014 as well as a younger core.

So when he talks about transitioning from that era he picked D'antoni because of the style he felt Dwight would be most comfortable in(which was the guy they were gonna be building around) and D'antoni's style IS one Dwight can play in, he just left for Houston to play that kind of style. I'm sure that's probably what Jerry had in mind when he made that decision after that 2014 season. Honestly I don't blame him for thinking that way, I really don't.

Jim says that Jerry wanted MDA. I will accept that for what it is worth. I have been around enough folks dying of cancer to question what it is worth. But I will accept Jim's word that Jerry had major input into the decision. That by no means gives Jim and Mitch a free pass. If Phil said or suggested he was not interested there were way too many other qualified coaches then available. The decision is virtually indefensible, no matter who made it.

Jim says that Jerry wanted MDA. I will accept that for what it is worth. I have been around enough folks dying of cancer to question what it is worth. But I will accept Jim's word that Jerry had major input into the decision. That by no means gives Jim and Mitch a free pass. If Phil said or suggested he was not interested there were way too many other qualified coaches then available. The decision is virtually indefensible, no matter who made it.

Phil talked to Mitch in the off-season.

They knew he wanted to be a pat Riley and jerry was cohesive enough to know that he did NOT want that.

As the guy who helped build the Lakers, I respect that he put Jim and not his eldest Johnny in charge. This isn't a simple decision of Jim being his son, but he felt he was qualified.

Dr Buss WAS the greatest ever. He is gone. Now we have an owner who will spend the money and is not all about profit.

Why doesn't he just do the noble thing and be like "hey, my father is gone. He was perfect and did no wrong. I take full responsibility for hiring. Leave him out of this" . Whether he did or didn't? What next? Is he gonna produce a recording of his dad and a full affidavit? Quit throwing him under the bus bro. No pun intended. Were over it. Just get back to conquering the league again. We love you no need to prove to us anymore. Just win. End rant

I've said this before in another thread. If Dr Buss made that call to bring in MDA it really speaks to how inept the front office is right now. Jerry Buss was on a his death bed for like a year and hadn't attended a home game since the mid of the 11-12 season I believe (correct me if I'm wrong). Why is he making personnel decisions?

Edited by Jody Smokes, September 12, 2013 - 10:09 AM.

"Blake and Parker are good at canceling each other out till our bench point guard comes in" - Majesty aka Bird Ish (12/4/13)

I've said this before in another thread. If Dr Buss made that call to bring in MDA it really speaks to how inept the front office is right now. Jerry Buss was on a his death bed for like a year and hadn't attended a home game since the mid of the 11-12 season I believe (correct me if I'm wrong). Why is he making personnel decisions?

While we may never be convinced of the way things went down with this decision...In answer to your query--sometimes the body fails before the mind does, and sometimes the mind before the body.

I've said this before in another thread. If Dr Buss made that call to bring in MDA it really speaks to how inept the front office is right now. Jerry Buss was on a his death bed for like a year and hadn't attended a home game since the mid of the 11-12 season I believe (correct me if I'm wrong). Why is he making personnel decisions?

He was only terminal for the last month-per ramona Shelburne

WTF are u talking about? You think jim was talking to a comatose man. Kobe said he talked to Jerry and his mind was still sharp and quick.

SO DISRESPECTFUL, and for what? Some ego trip about wanting "your" team to win every title, meanwhile jerry spending money like crazy to try and help HIS team win one.

Laker fans tend to be spoiled and have a sense of entitlement, but damn.